The River Dragon
by hypereuni
Summary: In which a seven year old Ino discovers that dragons can hatch out of watermelons.
1. Chapter 1

**Written for athere-a on tumblr for Shinobi Summerfest.**

**Prompts: Ino, Sakura, fireworks, watermelons**

* * *

It was the summer break right after the first school term, and Konoha was in the grips of a sweltering heat wave. Barely anyone ventured outside, save for the gangly civilian boys that went from house to house on their beat-up bicycles. They delivered eggs, milk and newspapers at the crack of dawn, and cold soba noodles and shaved ice around noon for those too tired to make the long, hot trek to the town square.

They also delivered flowers for Yamanaka Flower Shop, and for this, Ino was grateful, because it meant that she didn't have to leave her spot by the electric fan. Despite the heat, sales were brisk in July; while the number of customers who came into the shop were few and far in between, the phone never stopped ringing. Ino and her parents stayed indoors most of the time, rearranging bouquets of long-stemmed roses, purple irises and iridescent hydrangea clusters, all of which disappeared quietly by the time the sun set.

Today was one of the slower days of the season, the phone ringing intermittently like a broken record. Her parents, however, were still busy.

"Ino, darling, do you mind checking our stock of roses?" Kaa-san asked, covering the mouthpiece of the receiver. "How many do we have left?"

Ino tore her gaze from the Hokage Memorial and looked at her notes.

"There were 500 when I counted them this morning," Ino said. "Hokage-sama bought a bouquet of ten this morning, the hospital bought 50, and 350 are going out as part of the Tanabata promotion event, so… 90 roses left."

Her mother looked relieved. "Good," she said. The phone squawked, and she hastily returned to the phone call. "Yes, yes, I understand…"

A group of children ran past the shop, waving plastic buckets and sun hats, and Ino wistfully stared after their disappearing backs. She tugged at her mother's apron strings until her mother turned around.

"What is it, dear?"

"May I be excused?" Ino asked. "I've done all my chores for the day, and I'm tired. And bored."

"You can read books," her mother said, frantically scribbling down a phone number on the back of an old receipt. "Or watch some television. But only for an hour—we don't want it to overheat."

"I've already finished all of the books I borrowed last time," Ino said. "And there's nothing good on TV at this hour. It's just re-runs of old movies and soap operas."

The tip of Kaa-san's pencil snapped, and her mother frowned. She bent over to open the drawer below the cash register. "Why don't you visit some friends, Ino?" She suggested, rooting through the drawer in search of something else to write with. "You can bring them over for lunch, if you like."

Ino thought about it for a moment, then scrunched her face.

"Chouji's gone on a family vacation, so he's not around. Shikamaru's probably sleeping, as always." Ino looked at her mother hopefully. "Kaa-san, can you play with me?"

Her mother raised her head and gave Ino a stern look. "Ino."

"Just this once," Ino wheedled. "Please?"

Her mother sighed and resumed her search for a writing utensil, finally finding a pencil stub that was the size of Ino's little finger. "Kaa-san can't play with you right now, darling," she said, scrawling a note under the phone number she had written down a moment before. The phone rang again. "Yamanaka Flowers, how can I help you?"

But Ino persisted. "Pleaseee?"

Her mother merely shook her head, signaling to Ino to lower her voice. Ino's father emerged from the basement then, hefting bags of fertilizer. When he saw the expression in Kaa-san's eyes, he set them down by the front door and wiped his hands clean with a towel before coming over and leading Ino away from the counter.

"Your mother and I are busy at the moment, Piglet," he told her. "Why don't you go find Shikamaru? I saw Shikaku heading into work a few minutes ago. Shikamaru should be free."

"…Maybe I will go play with Shikamaru for a little bit," Ino decided, rather unwillingly. She looked out the open window and saw the rippling heat waves that rose from the concrete and shuddered. She really didn't want to go outside, but it beat having to stay indoors with nothing to do all day.

Her father ruffled her hair. "Have fun with Shikamaru, Ino," he said. "Come back for dinner, okay?"

* * *

Ino regretted going outside the instant she opened the door; the air was as thick as molasses, and just as sticky. She gritted her teeth, however, forged on until she arrived at the meadow near Training Ground Three, where she knew she could find a certain lazy, shogi-loving idiot.

"Shikamaru!" She hollered when she saw a familiar figure reclining under the shade of a tree. Her childhood friend, who had been happily lying on his back, stiffened at the sound of her voice. Then he hurriedly spat out the stalk of grass in his mouth and immediately turned over to his right side, facing away from the menace who threatened to distract him from his midday nap.

"Shikamaru's not here," came the muffled voice.

Ino rolled her eyes. "Don't be a child, Shika," she told him, reaching over to poke his forehead. "Oi, wakey wakey." She felt the skin under her finger wrinkle, and knew that Shikamaru was frowning.

"Stop that, Ino."

Ino, undeterred, gave him another poke, and Shikamaru squirmed. He curled into himself even more, so that the collar of his jacket hid his face from view.

"Why are you bothering me?" Shikamaru mumbled. "Go bother Chouji or something. I'm busy."

"Chouji's actually busy with important things, dummy," Ino said. "He won't be back until the end of August." She yanked his shirt and rolled him onto his back. "C'mon, Shika. Let's go do something. I'm bored. Play with me."

Shikamaru, looking like a turtle flipped on its shell, wriggled from side to side a few seconds, trying to find enough momentum to swing himself firmly onto one side without adjusting his current position. Ino watched him as he finally succeeded in planting himself back on his right side.

"Mmm," Shikamaru grunted sleepily, burrowing into the grass. "Feels nice."

Ino groaned. "We can't do anything if you're just going to laze around and sleep."

"I'm not sleeping, I'm watching the clouds."

"...You can't watch them if your eyes are closed, dummy."

"I'm watching them in my mind's eye," Shikamaru returned serenely, eyes still closed. "It's how smart people do it. You should try it sometime." He patted the grass next to him. "There's enough room in the shade for you too, Ino. It's a nice day outside—they have interesting shapes today."

"No thanks," Ino said, eyeing the grass skeptically. Shikamaru's invitation was tempting, but she'd spent enough days with him and Chouji dozing in the meadow, lulled to sleep by the rustle of leaves above their heads and the distant clang of weaponry in the distance, the balmy breeze cooling them down. It was already the beginning of August, however, and the start of the fall term was fast approaching. Accepting his suggestion meant that a whole, precious summer afternoon full of promise and excitement, even if it was boiling hot, would go to waste. "Shika, I don't want to nap. I want to explore."

Shikamaru wrinkled his forehead again. "It's too hot to explore," he complained. "Besides, we never go anywhere besides the movie theater and the shopping mall. I'd rather watch the clouds today. We can go next month, when Chouji's back."

"But school starts then," Ino protested. "It won't be the same."

Shikamaru cracked open a bleary eye and studied her.

"Why does that make a difference?" He asked. "What's the rush, Ino?"

"It's the last summer we'll have before we go back to the Academy again!" Ino said. She crossed her arms. "It won't be the same," she repeated mulishly.

It already wasn't the same.

The start of school one month before marked their first step into adulthood, and with it came the burden of responsibilities and expectations. Ino now rose with her parents while the sky was still dark to receive and store the first shipment of flowers, and went to bed as soon as they closed shop, only to repeat the cycle the very next day. On weeknights, her father quizzed her on the market value of blooms in season and out of season, and the names of the farmers who grew the plants her parents sold; on the weekends, her mother taught her how to snip flower stems at an angle to maximize water intake, and twine wire around the branches of bonsai trees to guide their growth.

Chouji and Shikamaru, likewise, were occupied with their own tasks to do, and slowly, the amount of time three of them spent fishing for minnows and climbing trees to look for cicada shells and stag beetles dwindled.

Ino felt her world shifting around her, days of ignorant bliss slowly slipping away from her reach, and she didn't really know what to do.

"So? It's just school. I'll still talk to you, if that's what you're afraid of," her friend said. Ino restrained the urge to scream.

"No, it's, just—it's different! You just don't get it."

Shikamaru blinked slowly. "If that's what you say," he said. He stifled a yawn. "Where did you want to go?"

Ino brightened. "Somewhere where we haven't gone before," she said. "Daddy told me that we can't peek into the other clan compounds or sneak into the training grounds anymore, but we can try climbing the Hokage Monument again to see if we can reach the First Hokage's left nostril this time. Or look for rhinoceros beetles in the forest! We went that one time and never went back, not after Chouji got those mountain leeches all over him."

Shikamaru didn't say anything. Ino took that as a sign of encouragement and kept on talking. "Or we can go looking for watermelons. Someone told me about a watermelon patch by the Naka River," she said, and at this, Shikamaru stirred.

"That can't be true," he mumbled sleepily. "Watermelons don't grow around these parts; they all come from Suna. Who told you that?"

"A friend of a friend of friend," Ino said. She had actually heard about it in one of her father's bedtime stories, but she wasn't going to tell Shikamaru that.

"Hmm," Shikamaru said, sounding unconvinced. "You might have better luck looking for them at the marketplace." He closed his eyes again. "Well, good night. Have fun."

"Oi, Shika. Shiiiiika."

Ino poked him again, but this time, Shikamaru refused to respond. When he still didn't answer to his name after the fifteenth time, Ino gave up on persuading her lazy childhood friend.

...Hmph.

Well, if Shikamaru wasn't going to play with her, she might as well explore on her own.

* * *

Ino avoided the obvious places to spend her Saturday afternoon, like the town square and the marketplace; she had been there numerous times with her parents and more than enough times with Chouji and Shikamaru for yakiniku and sweets. Besides, it wasn't as fun browsing without at least one of the boys lagging behind her, and Ino didn't want a subpar afternoon. She wanted an adventure.

So she didn't hesitate before wandering deeper into the parts of Konoha she had never ventured before, and soon, she found herself wandering into a dense, cool patch of forest.

The awful, oppressive heat had silenced the town, tamped down its vibrant vitality, so that apart from the few children playing near the safety of the shallow, sluggish streams, nothing dared to move or make a sound. Here, though, she heard snatches of birdsong echoing through the forest, and the sibilant sound of leaves swaying in the breeze. Squat toadstools in various bright colors dotted the forest floor, looking as beautiful as the flowers in the shop. She felt something caress her head gently with a soft brush. When she looked up, a chipmunk, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, stared back at her and chittered before flirting its tail and scampering away.

After a few more minutes of walking aimlessly, Ino came across a small wooden bridge above a raging river, white-capped waves crashing against the rocks, which oddly led to a waterfall. There was only one way in, and one way out, and it was precisely the bridge that Ino was currently standing on.

She hesitated, but only for a moment. Someone wouldn't have built something like this without a purpose, Ino thought, and without stopping to think about the potential dangers involved, or about the exact reasons behind the construction of such a bridge, she ran across the wooden planks and straight into the torrential waters that awaited her.

It was a good thing that she didn't, however, because she would have never found the secret tunnel hidden behind the waterfall.

* * *

When she opened her eyes, she saw a light at the end of what seemed to be a long tunnel.

Ino, not quite believing her own eyes, pinched her arm one, two, three times. When nothing else changed apart from her throbbing, red arm, Ino became relatively certain that she was still alive.

There was only two paths she could take, the one in front of her and the one she had just come from, and Ino, euphoric after confirming her not-dead status, chose the tunnel in front of her. It was a narrow tunnel, one that only a very small child could squeeze through, and Ino was forced to crawl on her hands and knees, gingerly making sure that her palms weren't scratched by the sharp surface of the rock. The light source at the very end illuminated her way, which was helpful in searching for places to put her hands and feet.

It was an uncomfortable journey, and the tunnel was damp and moldy, and smelled vaguely like the bottom of an unwashed flowerpot. Ino wrinkled her nose and wished that she had had the foresight to tie her handkerchief around her nose. At length, the light source became nearer, and nearer, and when Ino finally hoisted herself out of the tunnel, she realized that it wasn't just a bright light that awaited her.

It was paradise.

A meadow of bright yellow rapeseed flowers stretched out in front of her as far as the eye could see, beneath an azure sky, without a cloud in sight. A pleasant breeze swept through the fields, and the flowers tinkled like wind-chimes, ripples of harmonic chords echoing in the distance. Cabbage butterflies and fat bumblebees hovered around the flowers lazily, drunk on the plentiful nectar and pollen.

What was even more surprising, however, was the watermelon patch adjacent to the golden fields, and the watermelon smack dab in the center of the plot. The other watermelons weren't small by any standard, but they paled in comparison to the one in the center, which was huge. It was easily twice the size of the other melons growing around it, and far bigger than any of the ones sold at the market. In fact, it was the biggest watermelon that Ino had seen in her life.

Ino, stunned, took a step back, and tripped.

Something broke with a sharp snap.

Startled, she looked down at the broken cord entangling her feet. It was an old, frayed rope embedded with paper streamers fashioned like lightning bolts, that had been tied loosely around a few wooden stakes. When she had stepped back, she must have inadvertently stepped on the cord; the tension must have been too much for the brittle rope to withstand, and the hemp fibers had pulled apart where it had been weakest.

It was a shimenawa, a sacred rope, and Ino knew, with dread slowly crawling down her back, that this didn't bode well. Sacred cords like this hung at the entrance of shrines and temples; they were reminders that there were boundaries between the spirit world and the mundane, the pure and the profane, and whoever dared to disturb that equilibrium would rue the consequences. She looked at the center of the small enclosure the rope had guarded, and spotted something that looked like a miniature stone replica of the Naka Shrine.

The rapeseed blossoms rang sharply, like clustered suzu Shinto bells. The breeze shifted, changing directions, and the flowers rang again, more insistently this time, as if in warning. The wind suddenly picked up speed, and the bells jangled discordantly, a crescendo of metal hitting against metal...

Then a gust of wind seemed to blow from the shrine, toward her.

Something that felt like a small hand brushed past her ear.

"Hello," she heard a voice whisper.

The air, for some reason, smelled like cherry blossoms.

The wind blew again, and Ino could see something, like an intangible, gauzy shawl, moving towards the big watermelon in the center. It settled when the breeze died down, before sinking beneath the striped surface.

Then something cracked. It sounded like a tree branch falling, or a very, very large eggshell cracking under pressure.

When she heard the same sound again, Ino decided it was high time to leave.

* * *

When she told her parents about the small shrine on the hill at dinner that night, Daddy slightly froze. "A shrine?" He asked strangely. "Are you sure?"

Ino shrugged. "I don't really know if it was a shrine," she admitted. "It was pretty small, but there was a rope with paper streamers surrounding it that looked like the one around the Naka Shrine." She picked out another green pepper out of her stir-fry. "I accidentally tripped over it, though. I might have broken it because the rope was so old."

Her parents exchanged worried looks with each other.

"It might have been one of the abandoned ones from a long time ago," her mother said in an undertone to her father, and her father slowly laid his chopsticks down. He looked at Ino thoughtfully for a moment.

Ino led her father to the mysterious tunnel the next morning.

They trekked through the silent forest and crossed the small wooden bridge across the still river before they reached the sheer curtain of flowing water. Her father muttered something under his breath and made a few single-handed signs, and the curtain of water parted to let them through. Ino held her breath, anticipating the long, narrow tunnel with the bright light like a beacon at the very end.

But there was nothing there but a small, damp cave. Her father narrowed his eyes.

"Kai!"

When the cave remained the same, something that looked like relief flitted across his face. "There's nothing here," he said, surveying the rock shelter a second time.

"But there was," Ino protested. "There was a tunnel that I crawled through, and sunlight, and a watermelon patch with the hugest watermelon I've ever seen!"

She opened her mouth to talk about the disembodied voice that she had heard before thinking about it over carefully. She closed her mouth.

Her father chuckled. "It does look like a watermelon, now that I look at it," he said. He held the lamp higher, so that the light reached the very back of the cave, throwing the subtle striped pattern of the rock wall into sharp relief.

"Not that, Daddy," Ino returned, annoyed that her father was humoring her like a small child. "A real watermelon, like the ones at the market." She looked up at him. "You don't believe me, do you?"

Her father laid his hand on her head. "Of course I do," He said gently. "But don't come back here alone, okay? It's not safe to wander alone. There can be dangerous things inside the village, too."

"Okay," Ino promised.

She stealthily crossed her fingers behind her back.

* * *

Rules, to Ino's understanding, were meant to be broken; they wouldn't exist, otherwise. So after getting permission from her parents to go play with Shikamaru again, Ino stole back into the forest later that afternoon. She ran across the bridge, through the curtain of water and shimmied through the slimy tunnel.

She popped out of the tunnel to find herself back in Paradise. Everything looked beautiful, just the way she had seen it last time.

That is, everything except for the long, pink, scaly blob in the middle of the watermelon patch.

...What was a newly born prairie chicken doing here?

The blob stared at her with beady, emerald eyes. "Crikeeee," it chirruped. "Crikeeee."

It was only when little stubby limbs popped out of the pink blob's sides that Ino realized that it wasn't a prairie chicken, and it was probably a different species altogether. The blob wiggled its three-clawed feet experimentally before gingerly using them to move around. When it managed to walk a perfect circle around itself, it looked up at Ino, looking very proud of itself.

"Crikeee," it said, puffing up its weak chest. Then it coughed out a small firework that shot up into the sky and fizzled out in sparks of green and pink.

The blob looked embarrassed.

Ino just stared.


	2. Chapter 2

"…So you're a river dragon," Ino said. She had run back home, yelled to Daddy that she was going to be late for dinner, and snuck out the book of urban legends and myths that she had borrowed from Chouji months ago before returning to the strange meadow beyond the waterfall.

She settled down in the grass, pretzel-style. She looked at the creature in front of her, and then back at the illustration in Chouji's book. The color was off, but the general form seemed to be similar.

For something that was supposed to be a sovereign god, though, this thing was ridiculously tiny and…pink.

The pink thing just chirped again. It seemed happy that Ino was paying it attention. When she had returned, lugging the book with her, it had been waiting by the entrance of the tunnel rather forlornly.

Ino, however, looked at it suspiciously. "You don't eat people, do you?" she asked. She was relatively sure that it didn't, but it never hurt to make sure. If worse came to worse, though, she could probably pin it down in three seconds flat.

The dragon shook its head vigorously, now looking somewhat miffed. Its tuft of candy floss hair settled in front of its eyes, obscuring them from view.

"Well, if you don't eat people, what do you do?" Ino asked the dragon. "There has to be a reason someone sealed you up in that shrine."

The dragon cocked its head quizzically. "Crik?"

Ino glared at it. "You did something bad, didn't you?"

The dragon looked confused. "Crikikik," it said. It flicked its tail at the small shrine before curling up and closing its eyes, pantomiming sleep. Then it uncurled itself and shook its head to get rid of the hair in its eyes. Some of it must have irritated the creature's nose, because the dragon sneezed again, sparks flying out of its nostrils.

"Oh. So you were just sleeping, and I woke you up?"

The dragon nodded, green eyes now visibly watery. Ino couldn't tell if it was because of the hair, or the fact that Ino disturbed its eons of slumber.

"Sorry about that," Ino said sheepishly. "Wait, don't move for a second, okay?" The dragon froze obligingly, and Ino dug into her pockets, producing a red satin ribbon that was left over from tying bouquets of roses earlier that day. She took a step toward the dragon, and the dragon stiffened. It eyed her warily.

"I won't hurt you," Ino promised. "Promise."

When the dragon finally relaxed its posture, Ino reached out an arm, close enough to touch but not quite making contact. When she was sure that the dragon wouldn't make any sudden moves, she gently laid her hand on top of its head. The dragon's mane felt just the way it looked like: soft, fluffy cotton candy. Its scaly skin was smooth, cool to the touch, like watered silk. The dragon twitched slightly, iridescent scales shimmering in the sunlight, before leaning into Ino's hand out of its own volition. Ino waited for it to snuggle against her leg before combing through its unruly mane with her fingers.

It flinched when Ino tried to brush the hair away from its forehead.

"Ssshh, it's alright," Ino tried to reassure it. "I'm going to make you comfortable and fashionable. Just stay still for me, okay?" She felt the dragon trembling through her fishnet stockings. "It's okay," she soothed, patting its scaly back. "Ssshhh." She wound the ribbon deftly through its tresses before it could escape. "And…done!" She took out a hand mirror to show the dragon her efforts, and the dragon peered at its own reflection. Ino had tied the front fringe back and secured it with a big, red bow.

"Your eyes won't hurt anymore," Ino told the dragon. "Plus, big bows are the new "in" this year. At least, that's what Kuniochi Kulture says."

The dragon looked at itself silently. Then it looked at Ino and blinked its emerald eyes at her.

Ino grinned. "So, what do you think? Cute, isn't it?"

The dragon didn't say anything, but it trotted over to Ino and nestled in her lap.

Ino counted that as a 'yes.'

* * *

Ino began to visit the secret meadow as often as she could sneak out of the flower shop without anyone noticing. If anyone did notice her frequent absences, it was probably Shikamaru, but he seemed relieved that Ino wasn't bugging him to play with her anymore.

It didn't seem like the dragon could exit the meadow, so Ino took it upon herself to teach it about the world outside. Sometimes she went bearing gifts: a cluster of hydrangeas, a kemari ball, a tray of mitarashi dango from the dango shop near Yamanaka Flowers. Other times she would try to teach it games like hopscotch, or hide-and-seek, or jump rope. Ino learned that some of the games were too difficult for the dragon to play (rock-paper-scissors, she discovered, was nearly impossible with three-pronged feet). The dragon, however, was an avid pupil, and whatever it could do, it mastered within a few hours, much to Ino's joy (and eternal regret). Shogi, for example, quickly became its favorite game, and when it bested its teacher for the fifth time, Ino hastily called the game off-limits for an indefinite amount of time.

"You should meet Shikamaru, sometime," Ino grumbled after her loss. The dragon inclined its head.

"Crikik?" It inquired.

"He's a friend," Ino explained, and then brightened. "I'll try and bring him here, sometime."

The dragon, though, seemed distressed at the mention of outsiders. "Crikikikik," it protested, thumping its tail emphatically against the ground.

"He's a good person! I'm sure you'll like him," Ino reassured it. The dragon just looked at her sadly.

"Crikikik," it said mournfully. "Crikik."

* * *

The next morning, Ino went off to the Naras. She left her house, armed with a few sunflowers for Shikamaru's mother, and successfully traded them for a barely awake Shikamaru, who was still in his pajama bottoms.

"What do you want, woman?" Shikamaru said, rubbing his eyes. "It's Sunday."

Ino promptly smacked him.

"Owww, Ino."

"Wake up, lazybones. I have to show you something awesome."

Shikamaru yawned. "It's too early for this," he groused. "Couldn't you have waited until later to show me?"

"It's already past 10AM, Shikamaru," Ino said, exasperated. "Now start walking. I'm not going to carry you there."

When they got to the waterfall, Ino held her breath.

_Please show yourself to Shikamaru_, she prayed. _Please show up._

They pierced the curtain of water, and to Ino's delight, the tunnel appeared before them. She tugged on Shikamaru's hand. "Do you see it?" She asked him excitedly. "Do you see it, Shika? Isn't this amazing?"

Shikamaru seemed unimpressed. "It's just a cave, Ino," he said. "Big deal."

"No, not the cave, Shika, the tunnel!" Ino said. "The tunnel right in front of us! Don't you see the light at the very end of it? I can see it reflected in your eyes!"

Shikamaru, however, just blinked at her.

"There's nothing here, Ino," he said. "I don't see anything."

* * *

"You knew," Ino said to the dragon later that day. "You knew, didn't you?"

The dragon, who had been half-heartedly chasing a butterfly, mostly for Ino's amusement, stopped mid-jump. "Crik?" It queried.

"That Shikamaru wouldn't be able to come in here," Ino said. "You knew that, right?" The dragon nodded, and Ino sighed. "Has anyone been here, besides me?" She asked.

The dragon pondered for a moment, then nodded. It trotted over to where Ino was.

"Crikikik."

It drew 1 stick figure in the dirt.

"…Just one person?"

The dragon nodded.

"...Don't you ever get lonely, dragon?" Ino asked. In response, the dragon put its pink head on her knee and closed its eyes.

"Crikikik," it said contentedly, and somehow, Ino understood.


End file.
